Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Dec. 3, 2023.
The Israel Defense Forces releases footage of an airstrike in the Gaza Strip today, killing the commander of Hamas’s Shati battalion.
The IDF says Haitham Hawajri was responsible for sending Hamas terrorists into Israel during the October 7 massacre, and he led the fighting against troops in Gaza City’s Shati camp during the ground offensive.
According to the IDF, Hawajri, and his battalion, were responsible for securing Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, where the terror group is believed to have a base of operations underneath.
“As part of his role, Hawajri was responsible for a lot of terror activity against the citizens of the State of Israel,” the IDF adds in a statement.
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IDF announces deaths of 2 more soldiers in Gaza fighting.
Israel kills Hamas commander behind deadly attacks; rocket barrage targets Tel Aviv.
Israel said to tell neighbors and US of plans to create Gaza buffer zone after war.
Ships come under attack in Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthi’s claim responsibility.
Israeli strike behind blast at Houthi weapons depot in Yemen’s capital.
Netanyahu vows ‘total victory’ against Hamas; says PA rejects Israel, can’t rule Gaza.
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Top Hamas official says hostage negotiations are off until war ends.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s politburo, said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday that negotiations with Israel for further release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners have halted, and that there will be no further exchanges until Israel ends its war in Gaza.
Al-Arouri claimed that Hamas has released all the women and children it was holding as well as all the foreigners, and that the remaining hostages in its hands are all combatants and former combatants.
Israel says Gaza terrorists still hold 15 civilian women and two children taken hostage during the October 7 onslaught on southern Israel.
“From the beginning, the Hamas movement announced that the foreign prisoners were to be released without compensation, and that the children and women hostages were not a target and would be released,” al-Arouri said.
“The remaining prisoners in our hands are soldiers and former soldiers, and there will be no negotiations regarding them until the end of hostilities,” he added.
This category includes older men, some of whom still serve in the IDF reserves, he asserted. He said the terror group set terms for the release of the hostages it still holds that were different from those it had already freed, and claimed that Israel rejected those terms.
Still held hostage by Gaza terror groups when the truce collapsed are 136 people — 114 men, 20 women and two children. Ten are 75 and older. The vast majority, 125, are Israeli. Eleven are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand.
Israel says its truce with Hamas stipulated that the terror group would release all civilian women and children before freeing other categories of hostages.
Earlier on Saturday, the Mossad spy agency announced that a negotiating team that had been in Qatar to discuss a possible new truce had been recalled to Israel since talks had reached a “dead end.”
“Due to the dead end in negotiations, and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad head David Barnea ordered the negotiating team in Doha to return home,” said a rare statement from Netanyahu’s office issued on behalf of the agency.
“The Hamas terror group did not fulfill its obligations under the agreement that included releasing all the women and children that were on the list provided to Hamas that had authorized it,” the statement said.
The Israeli claim was backed by White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Saturday. “We think it’s more than plausible that they have more women and children that do and should qualify for an exchange,” Kirby said during a briefing. “It’s because of Hamas that this pause ended… The onus is on Hamas to be able to produce a list of hostages.”
In Saturday’s interview with Al Jazeera, al-Arouri reiterated that the only way for Israel to free its hostages was to first cease hostilities and then to release “all our prisoners,” a demand the terror group has been making since the start of the war.
More than 200 Palestinians were freed from Israeli prisons over the seven days of the truce that began on November 24 and ended on Friday.
As of November 1, Israeli authorities held nearly 7,000 Palestinians from the West Bank in detention for security offenses, according to the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.
Commenting on the resumption of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip following the end of the truce, al-Arouri said: “[Israel] breaking the resistance in Gaza and controlling the Gaza Strip are just illusions.”
The official noted that the scenes of Hamas handing over some of the hostages to the Red Cross inside Gaza City proved that Israel had not managed to gain control over the city and the north of the coastal enclave. Israel acknowledges it has not yet taken control of all areas in the north.
He further announced that Hamas was ready to exchange bodies of Israeli hostages for bodies of Hamas terrorists held by Israel, but that it needs time to exhume the dead Israelis — whom it claims were all killed in IDF bombardments.
Following Thursday’s shooting attack by two Hamas members at a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem, in which four Israelis were killed – including one civilian who fired at the terrorists and was mistaken by other responders for one of the assailants – al-Arouri said in his interview to Al Jazeera that Hamas was confident that after Jerusalem, the West Bank will soon join the battle.
The war began on October 7, when Hamas carried out a devastating attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people, most of them civilians massacred in their homes and at a music festival. The terrorists also abducted at least 240 people who were taken hostage in Gaza. Israel responded with a military campaign to crush Hamas and remove it from power in the Strip.
According to figures released by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, over 15,000 Palestinians have died in the ongoing war, of whom 200 were allegedly killed since fighting resumed on Friday morning. The figures cannot be independently verified and Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists killed.
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IDF chief says ground operation in south Gaza has already begun, will ‘bring results’.
Some residents in southern Strip told to evacuate.
Gallant meets freed hostage, vows to bring her son home.
Missiles fired from Gaza, Lebanon.
IDF announces deaths of 2 more soldiers.
At London interfaith vigil, Archbishop of Canterbury decries antisemitism, Islamophobia.
Asked about Hamas rape, US congresswoman criticizes Israel, calls for ‘balance’ in outrage.
Air strike in Iraq kills five members of pro-Iran paramilitary group, say security sources.
Israel said to tell neighbors and US of plans to create Gaza buffer zone after war.
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Ships come under attack in Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthi’s claim responsibility.
Pentagon says US warship, several commercial vessels targeted; Iran-backed rebel group claims it hit 2 Israel-linked boats hours after UK reports suspected drone attack.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates. Commercial ships came under attack Sunday by drones and missiles in the Red Sea and a US warship there opened fire in self-defense as part of an hours-long assault claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said.
The attack potentially marked a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war as multiple vessels found themselves in the crosshairs of a single Houthi assault for the first time in the conflict.
“We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Defense Department told The Associated Press.
The Carney is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that has already shot down multiple rockets the Houthis have fired toward Israel so far in the war. It wasn’t damaged in the attack, and no injuries were reported on board, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss early details of a military operation.
The Carney responded after hearing from the Bahamas-flagged bulk carrier Unity Explorer that it was under attack by missile fire, the official said. The Carney shot down two drones during the attack, one in self-defense and another after checking on the Unity Explorer, the official said.
The Unity Explorer was “struck by a rocket” while sailing south around 35 nautical miles off Yemen’s western coast, maritime security firm Ambrey said, citing reports. “The affected vessel was issuing distress calls relating to piracy/missile attack.”
This handout picture courtesy of the US Navy taken on October 19, 2023, shows the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) defeating a combination of Houthi missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Red Sea. (Aaron Lau / US NAVY.)
The security company noted reports that “an international naval asset in the vicinity of the incident” was likely proceeding to the ship’s location.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (agency, run by Britain’s Royal Navy, said it had received “a report of Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) activity including a potential explosion… originating from the direction of Yemen,” and advised vessels in the area to “exercise caution.”
Ambrey said the targeted vessel — en route from the United States to Singapore — had transited the Suez Canal five days ago. “The bulker was reportedly struck by a rocket and the crew retreated to the citadel,” it added.
“Numerous vessels passed the incident location today but no unusual maneuvers were observed.”
Ambrey said the attacked vessel’s ownership and management was linked to Dan David Ungar, a British citizen listed as an Israeli resident in Britain’s main companies directory.
The US Defense Department did not identify where it believed the fire came from. However, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attacks, saying the first vessel was hit by a missile and the second by a drone while in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
Saree did not mention any US warship being involved in the attack.
“The Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Red Sea (and Gulf of Aden) until the Israeli aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops,” Saree said. “The Yemeni armed forces renew their warning to all Israeli ships or those associated with Israelis that they will become a legitimate target if they violate what is stated in this statement.”
Saree also identified the first vessel as the Unity Explorer, which is owned by a British firm that includes Dan David Ungar, who lives in Israel, as one of its officers. The second was a Panamanian-flagged container ship called Number 9, which is linked to Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement. Managers for the two vessels could not be immediately reached for comment.
Israeli media identified Ungar as being the son of Israeli shipping billionaire Abraham “Rami” Ungar.
The Houthis have been launching a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, as well as launching drones and missiles targeting Israel amid the war.
Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the attack began about 10 a.m. in Sanaa, Yemen, and had gone on for as much as five hours.
Global shipping had increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce briefly halted fighting and Hamas exchanged hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. However, the collapse of the truce and the resumption of punishing Israeli airstrikes and its ground offensive there had raised the risk of the seaborne attacks resuming.
Earlier in November, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship also linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel near the port city of Hodeida. Missiles also landed near another US warship last week after it assisted a vessel linked to Israel that had briefly been seized by gunmen.
However, the Houthis had not directly targeted the Americans for some time, further raising the stakes in the growing maritime conflict. In 2016, the US launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that destroyed three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory to retaliate for missiles being fired at US Navy ships at the time.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in Souda Bay, Greece. (Petty Officer 3rd Class Bill Dodge/U.S. Navy.)
